The permaculture concept was coined by Australian scientists Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978. In the beginning, permaculture was presented as a framework for designing self-sustaining cultivation systems which mimic natural ecosystems in as much as possible, in order to make the most use of existing natural resources and minimize the harm done to nature by the agricultural processes. Today, the scope of permaculture has widened to also entail the designing of sustainable social systems and permaculture claims to propose holistic and practical solutions to sustainability challenges of different varieties, not only food production but also financial investment and political organisation. This is reflected in the permaculture ethics which serve as important guidelines to permaculture proponents. The ethics are: 1) care for the earth, 2) care for people and 3) a fair share (of resources). The permaculture ethics resemble the three commonly cited sectors of sustainable development: society, environment and economy. The possible similarities between permaculture and sustainable development initiated this research, which examines whether permaculture could be helpful in promoting sustainable development. To assess this, a critical reading of key permaculture literature was conducted. John Dryzek’s interpretation of sustainable development was used as a lens in the reading. Findings from the research material were also subjected to a linguistic analysis built upon selected elements of the critical discourse analysis (CDA) model, to further support and guide the critical reading. Results show that while permaculture and sustainable development do agree on certain aspects, they carry profound differences in terms of worldviews and visions of what a future, sustainable world should ideally look like. It is therefore unlikely that permaculture could be used to promote sustainable development.

Submitted by Franciele Moreira (francielemoreyra@gmail.com) on 2018-05-09T12:55:24Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Eurípedes Ferreira de Carvalho Júnior - 2018.pdf: 1751201 bytes, checksum: 85d65db5258d68ed821fa036fc78f3bf (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2018-05-10T13:18:28Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Eurípedes Ferreira de Carvalho Júnior - 2018.pdf: 1751201 bytes, checksum: 85d65db5258d68ed821fa036fc78f3bf (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-10T13:18:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Eurípedes Ferreira de Carvalho Júnior - 2018.pdf: 1751201 bytes, checksum: 85d65db5258d68ed821fa036fc78f3bf (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-04 / This work tries to discuss in the current society the relations of citizenship and consumption. They are understood through a critical discourse analysis of the media from a reading of the television show Fantástico and its apparent pro-citizen discourse. By weakening conventional social spheres of society such as family, school, and religion, social values are being appropriated more effectively by media channels. As a new arena for the debate on civil, political and social rights, television, through the publicizing of the desires, ambitions and frustrations of individuals, has been guiding the "adequate" way for social relations and reaffirming the concept of citizenship. Thus contributing to the transfer of the collective social relations of citizenship in individual acquisition and consumption processes for its constituent items - health, education, security, justice, transportation and leisure. The locus and the time stamp for this work are the TV show "Fantastic - the show of life" of Rede Globo, studied throughout the year 2016. Through a critical analysis of the discourse it was verified how the media built a shelf exhibition of desires to be consumed symbolically and materially by citizens-consumers. The objective was therefore to analyze how the discourse of the program was given when talking about citizen themes and whether this discourse was enlightening for citizenship, whether or not it was effective for the construction of "being citizen" in Brazilian society. / Este trabalho procura discutir na sociedade atual as relações de cidadania e consumo. Sendo compreendidas por meio de uma análise de discurso crítica da mídia a partir de uma leitura do programa televisivo Fantástico e seu aparente discurso pró-cidadão. Pelo enfraquecimento das esferas sociais convencionais da sociedade como a família, a escola e a religião, os valores sociais estão sendo apropriados mais efetivamente pelos canais midiáticos. Como uma nova arena para o debate sobre os direitos civis, políticos e sociais, a televisão, por intermédio da publicização de desejos, ambições e frustrações dos indivíduos, vem pautando o modo “adequado” para as relações sociais e ressignificando o conceito de cidadania. Desta forma contribuindo para a transferência das relações sociais coletivas da cidadania em processos de aquisição e consumo individuais para seus itens constitutivos – saúde, educação, segurança, justiça, transporte e lazer. O locus e a marcação temporal para este trabalho são o programa televisivo “Fantástico – o show da vida” da Rede Globo, estudado ao longo do ano de 2016. Por meio de uma análise crítica do discurso verificou-se como a mídia construiu uma prateleira expositiva de desejos para ser consumida simbólica e materialmente pelos indivíduos cidadãos-consumidores. E objetivou-se, portanto, analisar como se deu o discurso do programa ao se falar de temáticas cidadãs e se este discurso foi esclarecedor para a cidadania, sendo ou não eficaz para a construção do “ser cidadão” na sociedade brasileira.

nÃo hà / CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Esta dissertaÃÃo tem como objetivo identificar que concepÃÃo de leitura à legitimada nas OrientaÃÃes Curriculares para o Ensino MÃdio (OCEM), de LÃngua Portuguesa, as quais representam a atualizaÃÃo dos documentos curriculares oficiais anteriores, os PCNEM e os PCN+. A partir de um referencial teÃrico de base bakhtiniana acerca da concepÃÃo enunciativa de linguagem e de abordagens linguÃsticas acerca das concepÃÃes de leitura, pÃe sob anÃlise o (s) sentido (s) de leitura apreendidos de recortes feitos na materialidade linguÃstica desse documento, quando considerado em diÃlogo com os sentidos de recortes feitos em outros textos que tratam do mesmo tema. De acordo com a interpretaÃÃo dos dados, à possÃvel concluir que, ao invÃs de romperem completamente com as principais propostas teÃrico-metodolÃgicas dos documentos anteriores, as OCEM as ampliam porque passam a focalizar a leitura como um dos objetos de ensino/estudo, a qual à legitimada sob a perspectiva da concepÃÃo de leitura crÃtica, o que parece estar mais coerente com a finalidade de preparar o educando para o exercÃcio da cidadania / This thesis aims to identify which conception of reading is legitimized in the OrientaÃÃes Curriculares para o Ensino MÃdio (OCEM) [Curriculum guidelines for secondary school], Portuguese Language, which represents the updating of previous official curriculum documents, the PCNEM and PCN+. From a theoretical bakhtiniane basis about expository conception of language and linguistic approaches conceptions of reading, the places under review (s) direction (s) seized reading of linguistic materiality cuts made in this document, when considered in dialogue with the senses of other clippings that address the same subject. According to data interpretation, we conclude that, while not completely breaking with the major theoretical and methodological proposals of earlier documents, the OCEM to extend towards bringing the focus on reading as one of the objects of education / study which is legitimate from the perspective of the design of critical reading, which seems more consistent with the purpose of preparing the student for citizenship

Submitted by Rosangela Silva (rosangela.silva3@unioeste.br) on 2018-05-22T15:18:40Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Silvana Aparecida Costa da Cruz.pdf: 2936754 bytes, checksum: 964a23bdb980441492ac74660fe7c961 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-22T15:18:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Silvana Aparecida Costa da Cruz.pdf: 2936754 bytes, checksum: 964a23bdb980441492ac74660fe7c961 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / In this study we present a work proposal that, articulated to Professional Master in Letters (PROFLETRAS) - UNIOESTE - Cascavel, class 2016/2018, is based on the theme the commercial advertising genre in the critical formation of the reader. In the perspective of seeking the development of critical awareness of the act of reading, we focus, through the work with the selected genre, the critical formation of readers of the 9th grade of Elementary School. Thus, we proposed to find possible answers to the following question: How to enable 9th graders to exercise / develop their critical ability through a reading job with the discursive advertising genre? So, the general objective that guided this research was to create a didactic reading proposal with the discursive advertising genre to enable 9th graders to exercise / develop their critical capacity. For this, we support our studies in the reading conceptions of some researchers as Bakhtin (2003 [1992]), Luckesi et al. (1998), Freire (1992, 2005), Carvalho (2006), Hila (2009), Koch and Elias (2010), Menegassi (2010a, 2010b), Costa-Hübes and Barreiros (2014) , among others, searching methodologies and alternatives for teaching critical reading through work on discourse genres in the school environment, in the final grades of elementary school. In this sense, we developed a research supported by Applied Linguistics, being the same qualitative interpretative type and based on the method of action research. As a result, we obtained a significant improvement in the reading abilities of the students involved in the research, which proves the relevance of the work on reading in a critical and discursive perspective, based on the sociological and dialogical method of language. / Neste estudo apresentamos uma pesquisa articulada ao Mestrado profissional em Letras (PROFLETRAS) – Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná (UNIOESTE) – Campus de Cascavel, turma 2016/2018, sobre o gênero anúncio publicitário na formação crítica do leitor. Na perspectiva de buscarmos o desenvolvimento da consciência crítica do ato de ler, focalizamos, por meio do trabalho com o gênero selecionado, a formação crítica de leitores do 9º ano do Ensino Fundamental. Assim, propusemos encontrar possíveis respostas para a seguinte pergunta: Como possibilitar que alunos do 9º ano exercitem/desenvolvam sua capacidade crítica por meio de um trabalho de leitura com o gênero discursivo anúncio publicitário? Diante disso, o objetivo geral que norteou esta pesquisa foi criar uma proposta didática de leitura com o gênero discursivo anúncio publicitário a fim de possibilitar que alunos do 9º ano exercitem/desenvolvam sua capacidade crítica. Para tanto, sustentamos nossos estudos nas concepções de leitura de alguns estudiosos como Bakhtin (2003[1992]), Luckesi et al. (1997), Andrade e Medeiros (2001), Freire (1992, 2005), Carvalho (2006), Hila (2009), Koch e Elias (2010), Menegassi (2010a, 2010b), Costa-Hübes e Barreiros (2014), entre outros, procurando vislumbrar metodologias e alternativas para o ensino da leitura crítica por meio do trabalho com gêneros do discurso no ambiente escolar, nas séries finais do ensino fundamental. Nesse sentido, desenvolvemos uma pesquisa sustentada pela Linguística Aplicada, sendo a mesma do tipo qualitativa interpretativista e pautada no método da pesquisa-ação. Como resultado, obtivemos um significativo avanço das capacidades leitoras dos alunos envolvidos na pesquisa, o que comprova a relevância do trabalho com a leitura numa perspectiva crítica e discursiva, com base no método sociológico e dialógico da linguagem.

Orientador: Maria Rita Salzano Moraes / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T07:26:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Brahim_AdrianaCristinaSambugarodeMattos_D.pdf: 1893537 bytes, checksum: 5110d88e051bfaf6f9aa973be160bc71 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: Esta investigação foi realizada através da abordagem qualitativa de pesquisa, do tipo pesquisa-ação, orientada por reflexões teóricas sobre concepções de discurso, leitura crítica e tipos de interação pedagógica. O objetivo foi avaliar - através de análises de eventos pedagógicos selecionados a partir da interação em sala de aula - uma proposta de intervenção pedagógica em um contexto de formação de professores de inglês, ou seja, o Curso de Letras. Essa proposta foi guiada pelo "perspectivismo crítico" a partir do qual sugerimos uma prática de leitura que contemplasse, por um lado, os textos e o tema ("o mundo do trabalho") presentes no livro didático de inglês, e, por outro, textos externos, de mesmo tema, que apresentassem perspectivas discursivo-ideológicas diferentes. Sendo assim, nossa análise teve como corpus as análises pré-pedagógicas e cinco aulas registradas em que atuamos como professora-formadora/pesquisadora, a partir das quais investigamos os efeitos de vários tipos de interação pedagógica que ocorrem no processo de leitura crítica que parte de uma interpretação textual, para então chegar a uma interpretação do discurso, apoiando os alunos na reflexão sobre aspectos ideológicos subjacentes, levando-os a um posicionamento de aliança ou de resistência. Para isso, o estudo foi teoricamente embasado por concepções de análise crítica do discurso, leitura crítica e por tendências interacionistas neo-vygotskianas. As análises nos mostraram que uma aula de leitura que se quer crítica pode acontecer através de diferentes tipos de interação pedagógica, sendo em alguns momentos mais e, em outros, menos contingentes. O processo de reflexão crítica sobre discursos deve partir, necessariamente, de um entendimento do discurso em si. Como professora-formadora tivemos, em alguns momentos, um papel importante de apoio nas interpretações textuais e discursivas e, em outros momentos, os alunos mostraram autonomia nas interpretações discursivo-ideológicas. Concluímos que é possível fazer um trabalho de leitura crítica com textos de um livro didático se o professor-formador alterar o modo de utilização do material, inserindo outros textos sobre o mesmo tema que apresentem perspectivas discursivo-ideológicas diferentes. / Abstract: This investigation was carried out through a qualitative approach study and action research, supported by theories about discourse analysis, critical reading and pedagogical interaction. The main goal was to evaluate a pedagogical proposal in an EFL teacher education course. This proposal was based on the critical perspectivism - a pedagogical practice which uses texts and theme (the world of work) from an EFL textbook and other authentic texts. All these texts have different ideological perspectives. The corpora were the pre-pedagogical analyses and five registered classes that were analysed to investigate the different types of pedagogical interaction effects. This was carried out in a critical reading process, which initiates with text interpretation, leading to discourse interpretation and supporting the students in the process of ideological critical reflection, therefore positioning them differently.The analyses showed that a critical reading class can take place in either a onological or a dialogical way. The critical reflection process has to start by an understanding of the discourse itself. As a researcher and an educator-teacher we had an important role concerning the scaffolding to lead students to different discourse positionings; on the other hand they had some autonomy. We have also concluded that it is possible to make a critical pedagogical work with texts from an EFL textbook if the educator-teacher changes the way of using the textbook adding to his work texts with different ideological perspectives. / Doutorado / Lingua Estrangeira / Doutor em Linguística Aplicada

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-03-20T12:07:23Z No. of bitstreams: 1 taniamariadossantos.pdf: 923491 bytes, checksum: f36272f2e911d7ae9766ffbf1e617c28 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-03-21T13:12:25Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 taniamariadossantos.pdf: 923491 bytes, checksum: f36272f2e911d7ae9766ffbf1e617c28 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-03-21T13:12:42Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 taniamariadossantos.pdf: 923491 bytes, checksum: f36272f2e911d7ae9766ffbf1e617c28 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-21T13:12:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 taniamariadossantos.pdf: 923491 bytes, checksum: f36272f2e911d7ae9766ffbf1e617c28 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-05 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta pesquisa se insere na linha de pesquisa Linguagem, Conhecimento e Formação de Professores do Programa de Pós-Graduação da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora/UFJF – Minas Gerais e se propõe a estudar o trabalho de professores do segundo segmento do Ensino Fundamental com a leitura em sala de aula. O objetivo é discutir os significados construídos nesta atividade pelos professores de uma escola municipal de Juiz de Fora, qual seria a prática dos professores de Língua Portuguesa e também os de outras disciplinas, como História e Geografia, compartilhadas com os alunos no momento da realização de atividades com a leitura, por meio da questão norteadora: quais são os sentidos construídos, no trabalho desenvolvido pelos professores com a leitura em perspectiva crítica, a fim de promover uma reflexão sobre a formação do aluno leitor? Para a efetivação da pesquisa as referências da teoria sócio histórico-cultural de Vygotsky nas contribuições de Maria Tereza Freitas e Solange Jobim, se constituem no aporte teórico, assim como o referencial metodológico é norteado pelos princípios da Pesquisa Crítica de Colaboração (IBIAPINA, 2008 e MAGALHÃES, 2006), como um processo em que todos os sujeitos da pesquisa, em um movimento de colaboração, desenvolvimento e aprendizado, são responsáveis pela produção dos dados e do conhecimento. A discussão teórica está embasada nos estudos sobre a leitura de CHARTIER, 2009; DI FANTI, 2003; FREIRE, 1985; GERALDI, 2010; KLEIMAN, 1996; KOCH, 2011; KONDER, 2009. Finalmente a análise é baseada nas teorias da argumentação e é composta a partir de um excerto da sessão reflexiva realizada com as quatro professoras da instituição pesquisada. A discussão dos resultados está pautada na análise dos dados por meio das categorias argumentativas desenvolvidas com base em Reboul (2004), Liberali (2006) e Schapper (2010). Os resultados indicam que ainda é necessário pensar e discutir sobre a argumentação entre professores e alunos no momento da leitura em sala de aula e sobre a voz dos alunos na construção dos sentidos construídos a partir das leituras realizadas. / This research is inserted in the research line Language, Knowledge and Teachers’ Training of the Postgraduate Program of the Faculty of Education at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora / UFJF - Minas Gerais and intends to study the teachers’ work of the second level of the Elementary School with reading in classroom. The aim is to discuss the meanings constructed in this activity by teachers of a Public School in Juiz de Fora, which would be the practice of Portuguese language teachers and also from other disciplines, such as History and Geography, shared with the students at the time of the reading activities through the guiding question: what are the meanings constructed in the work done by teachers with reading in critical perspective in order to promote reflection on the formation of the student reader? For the completion of the research references from Vygotsky’s socio-cultural and historical theory on the contributions of Maria Tereza Freitas and Solange Jobim, constitute the theoretical framework. The methodological framework is guided by the principles of Critical Research of Collaboration (IBIAPINA, 2008 and MAGALHÃES, 2006), as a process in which all the subjects of the research, in a collaboration, development and learning movement are responsible for producing data and knowledge. The theoretical discussion is based on the studies about reading by CHARTIER, 2009; DI FANTI, 2003; FREIRE, 1985; GERALDI, 2010; KLEIMAN, 1996; KOCH, 2011; KONDER, 2009. Finally, the analysis is based on the theories of argumentation and is made from an extract of the reflective meeting with the four teachers of the researched institution. The results discussion is guided by the analysis of the data through the argumentative categories developed based on Reboul (2004), Liberali (2006) and Schapper (2010). The results indicate that it is still necessary to think and discuss about the argumentation between teachers and students at the time of reading in classroom and on the voice of the students in the construction of meanings constructed from the readings taken.

Orientador: Sylvia Bueno Terzi / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-25T09:23:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Almeida_AnaLuciadeCampos_M.pdf: 4601142 bytes, checksum: 77660c3a9ea4a863a85c206ccf9b878c (MD5) Previous issue date: 1999 / Resumo: Norteado por uma concepção de linguagem bakhtiniana e, tomando conceitos da Psicologia Cognitiva, da Lingüística Textual e da Análise Critica do Discurso que, conjugados, permitem considerar a leitura uma atividade sócio-cognitiva-discursiva, este trabalho de pesquisa teve como objetivo investigar o papel da intertextualidade na compreensão critica de textos argumentativos na leitura de uma turma de alunos concluintes do ensino fundamental em uma escola pública. Os dados foram obtidos durante uma intervenção pedagógica, uma forma de pesquisa-ação, que visava permitir a construção de uma base de conhecimento intertextual a ser mobilizada pelos leitores no processo de construção de sentidos. Posteriormente, procedeu-se à comparação desses dados com aqueles obtidos através de avaliação diagnóstica inicial e com dados provenientes de outra turma de alunos do mesmo nível de escolaridade, não-participante da intervenção. Os resultados permitem concluir que a construção de uma base de conhecimento intertextual, operacionalizada mediante a apreensão do gênero, da intertextualidade de conteúdo e do contexto sócio-histórico, constitui-se em um fator determinante para a ampliação da competência em leitura de textos argumentativos, propiciando o desencadeamento do processo de leitura critica. Em termos de implicações pedagógicas, os resultados desta pesquisa evidenciaram a relevância de se trabalhar com uma abordagem intertextual nas práticas de leitura em sala de aula com o propósito de propiciar o desenvolvimento de leitores críticos / Abstract: This research work is intended to investigate the importance of intertextuality in e critical reading of argumentative texts produced by a group of sudents who were conc1uding the elementary course at a public school. It is based on a Bakhtinian view of language, considering its dialogic and socio-historical constitution; it also takes concepts from Cognitive Psychology, Text Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, assuming reading as a socio-cognitive-discoursive activity. Data were collected during a pedagogical intervention, a kind of action research, that aimed at building an intertextual basis which is believed to help the students to build meanings in their reading. Then, these data were compared twice: firstly, they were compared to some data obtained from the same group of students, in a reading task before the intervention; and secondly, they were compared to some data obtained from another group of students, who had not taken part in the intervention, in a reading task. The results show that the construction of an intertextual basis favoured the production of the critical reading of argumentative texts by enabling the students to aprehend the discourse gender, the thematic intertextuality and the socio-historical context. In terms of pedagogical implications, these results point out the relevance of adopting an intertextual perspective concerning the development of reading practices at school in order to construct critical readers / Mestrado / Ensino-Aprendizagem de Lingua Materna / Mestre em Linguística Aplicada

Fake news is nowadays part of our everyday lives, especially for those who are exposed to social media. As 8 out of 10 Swedish teenagers mainly read news on social media, this study was conducted to investigate to what extent students are taught to deal with fake news. This was done by examining exercises in English workbooks currently used at the upper secondary level. Skolverket (2021) clearly states that it is part of Swedish teachers’ mission to educate students so that they can orientate and act in a complex reality with a large flow of information, increased digitization and a rapid pace of change. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to examine how and to what extent workbooks in the Swedish EFL classroom provide students with tasks which can be said to further skills related to source criticism and critical thinking. It also aims to address the possible prevalence of insufficient skills of the above-mentioned kind and its potentially harmful consequences. This was done by investigating how exercises in workbooks can be said to promote an improvement of source criticism and critical thinking. The method of the presented study emanates from the theoretical framework of critical literacy from a pragmatic perspective. The study is qualitative as the examined material is limited. The results show that the workbooks vary in how they enable the ability to detect bias and critical thinking and that the workbooks rely on teachers to elaborate instructions. This indicates that the exercises in the workbooks may not be sufficient to fulfil the mission stated by Skolverket (2021).

In today’s society it’s important to teach our pupils to identify the messages in the texts they meet. From a critical literacy perspective, no text is neutral and analysing texts is about learning how language is related to power and how it affects us. The purpose of this degree project has therefore been to create, test and evaluate a material that aim to enable pupils´ development of strategies for critical reading and writing as well as providing support for the teacher in working with texts from a critical literacy perspective. The study is based on theoretical views within literacy with a socio-constructivist view on language, where learning takes place in a social context, through communication. This interventional study was conducted in a Swedish school with pupils aged 9–10 years. We observed two lessons where the material was used in teaching, to examine how critical reading and writing activities were carried out in practice. Interviews were also made with the teacher and some of the pupils in the class, to further examine how the material was perceived. Our analysis shows that strategies for reading comprehension such as, questioning, summarizing, predicting, clarifying, making connections and creating mental images was being used before, during and after the reading. When reading strategies were used without explicit instructions the pupils was given the opportunity to make connections to their previous experiences from various literacy practices when needed, in order to build their comprehension of the text. Moreover, the material provided support for the teacher in working with critical reading and writing but did not affect the teacher´s general approach to reading and writing.

The following essay explores the connection between pandemic dystopian fiction and a pedagogy of discomfort through a critical reading of The White Plague by Frank Herbert. It is advocated in this essay that a critical reading of the novel can give rise to uncomfortable topics related to living in a pandemic reality, which in turn can be incorporated in an ESL setting to encourage critical inquiry and action. Grounded in a thematic analysis of the novel, it is demonstrated that The White Plague can be used to discuss uncomfortable topics such as fear of biogenetic engineering, fear of others, nationalism, national identity, deglobalisation, violence against women, patriarchy, and traditional gender roles. Contextualised withincontemporary history, tradition, ideology, and recontextualised with the current COVID-19 pandemic, the essay confirms that a critical reading of The White Plague carries the potential to promote a pedagogy of discomfort inside an ESL classroom.